


dream about that casual touch

by Queerapika



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: F/F, Rule 63, f!Kurapika, f!Leorio, leopikaweek 2018
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 07:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15925664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerapika/pseuds/Queerapika
Summary: 'Kurapika knows for a fact that she is so, so stupid about this woman. Unbelievably stupid.'written for leopikaweek 2018, day 5: Spectrum





	dream about that casual touch

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I have no good excuse for this except that I am a queer lady who wants to write her faves as queer ladies.

"It's saturday," Pairo says, leaning heavily over the counter. There's a spark of mischief dancing in his eyes which is in no way related to the joys of working on the weekend.

"So it is," Kurapika replies, deadpan. She ties up her bob into a more practical ponytail and rolls up the sleeves of her floral button-up, which she already regrets wearing as the temperatures climb ruthlessly. It's not even noon and the air in the store feels as thick as butter. She bends down low and heaves a parcel of paper fans up onto the sales counter, which she then starts to sort into a new display.

Pairo's grin would make the Cheshire Cat blanch with envy and so Kurapika decides that it is about time to give him something to put his mind onto, before he gets any crazy ideas. Such as trying to tease her.

"The bamboo travel mug table needs to be stocked up," Kurapika informs him. "And the notebook carousel and the copic markers, too. Oh and we got a bunch of reading samples in today, if you wanna have a look at that." She has already skimmed through the samples herself, at least to gauge which genre they belonged in. Kurapika is not very optimistic that the samples will have a decent influence on their sales numbers, though, since their average customer belonged two one of two very distinct groups of people with very distinct spending habits.

Their little book store was only five minutes away from a teaching hospital and therefore their clientele was seventy percent stationary patients and relatives of patients, who bought magazines and reading glasses, get-well-cards and chocolates and the occasional lifestyle book. The other thirty percent was composed of residents and nurses, whose buying habits were outright frustrating. Residents had no time to read; the regulars stopped by only for their snack cravings. Granola bars. Chocolate. Kurapika has invested in a mini-fridge recently so they can keep selling chocolate in this hellish summer heat. The chocolates shared their chilly prison with iced coffee and energy drinks because if there is one thing that doctors need to survive, aside from sugar, it's caffeine.

But they make decent money thanks to their regulars and Kurapika knows she should be grateful for that. It's just that sometimes she feels like she is running a gift shop, not a book store. It's boring work. People rarely stay long enough for a small chat about literature and some areas of the store never seem to need stocking up. They sell a few romance novels a day and diet-related books, books about learning how to cope with loss, a few crime novels and thrillers for the people who try to fight the boredom of their daily routine.

Meanwhile, the sci-fi and fantasy corner is gathering dust. The young adult section? Only frequented by one person and that person was Kurapika herself.

It is true what they say about retail - employees make the best customers.

Pairo takes one of the fans and starts fanning his face, ignoring Kurapika's cry of protest. "So, do you think she's gonna come today?"

"Who?", Kurapika asks, but does not meet her friend's gaze.

"That hot lady that turns you into a useless, stammering mess? Black hair, legs for days, always shows a lot of cleavage. That one."

Kurapika grinds her teeth, unwilling to confirm Pairo's suspicions, but having no arguments to deny it either. "Pairo, if I had the power to predict when customers show up, our lunch breaks would be a lot longer and a lot less stressful."

"Yeah, but she usually shows up once a week, doesn't she? And she hasn't showed her face yet so far. And you're wearing your extra gay floral shirt today, so I presume you're expecting to see her."

Kurapika clucks her tongue and she reaches for the ruby red stone that hangs from her left ear. She twists the gem between her thumb and forefinger, seeking comfort in the familiar edge. Is she really that obvious or does Pairo just know her too well?

"Whatever. Either she shows up or she doesn't. I don't care."

Kurapika turns and disappears in the back to escape the conversation. And to do some actual work, unlike other people. Unfortunately, without a single customer in sight, there's nothing stopping Pairo from following her. He picks up a box of pens and the bamboo cups and says, almost too casually: "You should give her your number."

She clenches her jaw, stubborn to a default. "I'm not gonna give a straight girl my number, no way." In fact, Kurapika prefers to stay away from straight girls altogether - to fall for one is a special kind of masochism and even if the relationship is entirely platonic in nature, it would be difficult at best. Straight girls make her antsy. Too many of them let themselves be treated like shit by men and Kurapika has neither the time nor the sympathy to deal with that.

"Who says she's straight?"

Kurapika runs her tongue over her lips. For one, her mystery woman looks like she has her shit together. Kurapika has never seen this lady anything but perfectly made up and dressed as fashionably as a sailor scout. The one that comes to mind in particular is Rei Hino - bold warm colors and clothes that tease along the inviting curves of her body. Hips that sway when she walks. She seems like the kind of woman that men have wet dreams about. She didn't allow herself to be ugly.

"Who says she's not?" Kurapika challenges. She's not in the mood to debate her observations, or worse, have them corrected by Pairo. Most of all, Kurapika is not in the mood to get her hopes up. She might as well be hoping for Gal Gadot to sweep her away - which seems just as likely.

"Last week she was asking about a Sarah Waters novel," Pairo points out.

"She was asking about the Night Watch. That's not... it doesn't count. It's not gay in the way that Tipping the Velvet is."

Pairo raises a mocking brow as if to say  _do you even listen to yourself talk_? but he reigns in his sharp tongue before it could do any damage. An enviable skill. "Okay, forget about the novel. But you can't deny that she's awfully touchy with you."

Kurapika picks up a box of the latest historical family drama novel and scrunches up her face. "Sure she is. Straight girls usually are as long as they think you're straight too." She doesn't mean to sound quite so bitter, but Kurapika has been there before. She knows. Straight girls would kiss each other, cuddle and sit on each other's lap. They hold hands. Call each other girlfriends. And all these things are fine because they regard each other as  _safe_. But the second they realize that there is a lesbian among them, it all changes. Every attempt to be close to them is regarded uncomfortable, unwanted. Predatory even.

Kurapika clucks her tongue. "Look. We can stand here and guess all day and it won't matter. But fact is, if I give her my number and she's just not interested, that's gonna make things weird. Worst case, she will just stop coming here. I don't want to be to blame for that."

"I get that," Pairo says quietly. "I really do. But she might just as well stop coming for other reasons and then you'll never know for certain if she was just being nice or if there was more to that. And then you'll keep asking yourself until you're old and gray-"

"It's not that big of a deal!" Kurapika interrupts her friend's musings with a hiss. "Stop acting like we're in an Austen novel. Just because she has a pretty face doesn't mean I'm gonna be stupid about her."

"M-hm," Pairo says.

 

Kurapika knows for a fact that she is so, so stupid about this woman. Unbelievably stupid. 

She cranes her head whenever the doorbell chimes, hoping that this time it would be  _her_. Hoping to spy an imposingly tall figure with beautiful dark eyes and hair that flows to her shoulders like black silk. The heat is putting another strain on Kurapika's patience and soon she finds herself undoing the first few buttons of her shirt and flees in front of a fan, to let a breeze cool down the flushed skin on her chest.

Customers come and go. Four pm comes and passes.

Kurapika's retail smile becomes more and more strained until she gives up and picks up a book of her own. Bent over the counter in what has to be the most uncomfortable position known to makind - bracing herself on the wooden surface, shoulders drawn up to her ears, ass raised up as she keeps her legs straight - Kurapika starts to read. Slowly, the background noise of the store starts to fade. The whirring of the fans, the hum of the mini-fridge and the mechanical shrieking of their coffee machine as Pairo fixes them another cup to stay awake until shift end.

All this gets swallowed by the voice inside of Kurapika's head that pulls her into a world of sleeping whales, of stories real and imagined. The reconstruction of a life. A place where time does not exist and where Kurapika's understanding of reality is challenged.

To read means to be an observer. A recipient. To go on a one-track adventure, free of the burden of choices. 

When the bell chimes again, Kurapika doesn't hear it. And when the woman draws near, her eyes are still glued to the page, her mouth moves silently as they try to capture the story.

"Good one?", the customer asks and her voice dances with humour.

Kurapika jolts. She gasps like a person submerged that finally breaks through the surface - and immediately the wind is knocked out of her again. Beautiful women have that effect on her. But this woman in particular.

"Hi again," she greets with a flash of white teeth against blood red lips. "Hope I didn't disturb you." 

"No, please disturb me," Kurapika blurts out, a little too eager to be passed off as a joke. She closes the book and straightens her posture. "I mean, customers come first, right? So, how can I help you today?" She wants to cringe at her own high-pitched service voice. Her retail autopilot voice. 

"What's that book that you're reading, sweetie?

"Well..." Kurapika hesitates, gathering her thoughts, but as she does, her eyes trail helplessly over the woman's silhouette from head to toe, longing to admire, to memorize everything. From the high ponytail that swishes when the lady tilts her head to the sprinkle of freckles on her nose. The contrast of subtle eyeshadow to the boldness of her lip color. The shimmer on her cheekbones. The golden anatomical heart necklace that hangs around her neck that compels the gaze to linger right above the valley between her supple breasts. Today her curves strain a burgundy top and dangerously short denim shorts that cover no inch of her shoujo legs. 

"It's called Radiance," Kurapika says as she comes around to the front of the counter, clutching the book to her chest like a shield. "And it's kind of hard to describe what it's about, compared to how it tells its story. It's retrofuturism, but not steampunk. Like, you have space colonization, but it also has this old hollywood feeling to it. It's trying to piece together the story of a woman's death and her past using different formats of narration." 

Kurapika opens the book again and turns it, holds it out towards her customer. And as she continues to speak, the turns the pages slowly. "Some parts are written like a movie script and others like a noir detective monologue and then you have a narrator that speaks to the reader on how to observe the story, as if you are sitting in a movie theater, watching snippets of film footage that just won't match. It's... kind of all over the place, but so is the plot, spanning all across the solar system. And. Yeah. It's not for people who prefer linear plot and reliable narrators."

"Sounds intriguing. I came here looking for a recommendation, actually. Are you enjoying it so far?"

"It's... engrossing. I bought it because I love the author, but this one's quite different from her other works. Not in a bad way but... it just has a very different vibe."

The customer closes the book and scans the blurb on the back, caressing the spine as she reads. Her fingernails are meticulously short, but neat and prim. No harsh edges, no worried cuticles. No nail polish. Kurapika pegs her a musician, except the topic of music has never come up between them and it seems intrusive to ask without context. There could be another explanation, of course. But to consider it definitely falls into the category of 'getting one's hopes up'.

"It seems like a book that you have to make time for. Not sure if it's quite the right thing to read at work. Hm. Say, if you had to recommend just one book by this author, which one would you consider your favorite?"

Kurapika parts her lips. Hesitates. She knows then, that she has to lie, because there is no way that she can look this gorgeous amazon of a woman in the eyes and suggest a children's book with her pride still intact - not even if Kurapika made the plea that growing up was a sham to keep people from enjoying their adult lives. So she looks up and takes a deep breath and says: "Deathless." She goes on then about the book and its themes of Russian folklore and war, praises the flourish of the author's writing, but her heart is only half-way in it. The other half is anguishing over the softness of a girl's skin, and how she has exactly the perfect height to rest her head on this stranger's chest. And when she tries to draw her eyes away from the mesmerizing cleavage and aims them at the floor instead, she notices the cause for their great height difference: a pair of finely strapped, high-heeled sandals.

"Nice shoes," Kurapika says because she can't help herself. "I like a bold choice." With a height of 1,71 meters, Kurapika falls on the tall end of average and the other woman easily beats her by, what, twenty centimeters? Few men reach that height. And even fewer men could handle the idea of a woman looking down at them. There was no reason for her to wear heels except that she must have been told numerous times that she absolutely could not.

And if there is one thing that Kurapika understands and relishes, it's doing things out of spite.

"Thank you!" The lady beams back at her. There's a sly edge to that smile, a knowing sort of connection. "Would you like to know where I bought them? I'm sure they're still in stock."

"I'm... not a heels kind of girl, actually," Kurapika says.

"Right," she says and puts so much weight in that one words, as if she  _knows_. As if she takes in Kurapika with her floral button up and her converse shoes, the piercings adorning her ears, and the succulent tattoo on her thigh, not to mention the nape undercut - and knows her for what she is. A queer, non-conforming little punk who viciously rejects the performativeness of femininity. 

"Do you have Deathless in stock?"

"Unfortunately no. Catherynne Valente is not very in demand, I'm afraid. But I can order it for you and you could pick it up by Monday or Tuesday."

"That would be great!", the amazon says and puts her hand on Kurapika's arm. Just like that. Which is... cool. Straight girls do that and there is absoluely no reason to get all dizzy and weird about it.  _Breathe, Kurapika,_  she tells herself. "Thank you so much, darling," the other woman purrs, oblivious to the mild panic she causes.

Kurapika takes a step back, unsure how to shake off the hold on her arm without offending her customer. "I'll get right to it, I just-" Kurapika gestures vaguely to the computer screen that is perched upon the sales counter. "I need your name. For the order."

The woman's mouth shapes into a cute little ' _o_.' "Of course." She lets go and straightens her spine. Kurapika takes the opportunity to flee behind the counter and open the database.

"I could leave my phone number here too, right? So you could give me a call when it arrives? I don't exactly live next door, so-"

"That's not going to be necessary," Kurapika assures and from the corner of her eye she glimpses Pairo in a corner, smacking his forehead theatrically. Kurapika decides to ignore it this. "We get our deliveries at the same time each day. If the book is in store at the warehouse - and it is - it should arrive on monday afternoon, 5 pm. We will hold onto it for a week, so feel free to stop by whenever."

"I see." The woman worries her lip, leaving red lipstick marks on her front teeth, which Kurapika finds strangely endearing. Makes her appear more human. "Okay, so my name is Leorio - that's Leo like the lion and Rio like the city - and my last name's Paladiknight. Like Paladin and Knight merged together."

"Isn't a paladin a knight too? Just a religious one?", Kurapika asks innocuously, as if she hasn't played Dungeons and Dragons for all of her teen years.

"I mean, I guess?"

"So that means your last name is Knight-Knight?"

Leorio shrugs. "It probably used to be Palladino some generations ago and one of my ancestors really messed up the whole anglicising process. I don't know. But that also means that my family are the only ones with that last name. Makes you feel special. Until you get a stalker, then the original-ass name isn't so much fun anymore."

"True" Kurapika winces. "That's why I'm not on social media anymore."

"God, I bet you get your fair share of creeps too, huh?"

"That's just how it is when you work with people. Alright,  _Leorio-_ ", Kurapika says, testing the name on her tongue. "Your order is placed."

"Just Leo is fine."

"Leo, then.  Anything else I can do for you?"

"Well,  _actually,_ " Leo says and Kurapika looks up from her screen, curious. But as soon as she does, Leo's smile falters. She slips back into it with force and when she speaks up again, her voice has gone up a notch. "I'll think I'll grab a few granola bars while I'm here. You got the banana white choc ones?"

"Sure," Kurapika says. She's dead certain that this is not what Leo has meant to ask for... not that it matters. She's not a mind reader. What her customers do not ask for, she cannot provide. But Leo had that expression on her face, when she changed her mind. The one that Kurapika has seen on countless women before, shortly after the Book They Do Not Speak About came out - the fear of seeming improper.

"Great, I'll take three."

She does not meet Leorio's eye when she puts the granola bars on the counter and keeps her voice low when she offers, almost too casually: "We do also have a small selection of erotica novels. You can find them at the bottom of the romance and harlequin shelf. Best paired with one of our dark canvas bags."

"Oh!", Leo calls out, loud enough to make Kurapika wince. "That's... cool? I guess? Not quite my cuppa tea tho. But I, uh, appreciate the offer?"

_Oh my god._

Kurapika nods, slowly, her jaw so tight it almost hurts. She wouldn't have minded then for the floor to crack open and swallow her whole and the rest of the transaction seems to pass painstakingly slow. With palpable confusion Leo pays for her snacks and walks a few steps backwards, announcing that she should go. "Got stuff to do," she says weakly, backing away as if trying to avoid a dangerous confrontation. Her goodbye-wave lacks the usual cheer.

And then Leo is out of the door and with a groan, Kurapika deflates and buries her face in her hands. "Fuck. Me."

Somehow, she doesn't think that Leo will be back.

Before she can even think of how to stomach the humiliation, Pairo creeps closer to make it worse. "Erotica novels? Is that your idea of flirting?"

"She had the look," Kurapika hisses. "You know the one."

"Kurapika, I literally have no idea what you're talking about and I'm not sure I want to know. I- I can't believe you messed this up. And why the hell didn't you take her phone number when she offered? You were this close.  _This_  close."

"I-" Kurapika says and lets her mind wander over the earlier, less dreadful part of the conversation. "She only wanted to share her number for notification purposes, not for private reasons. That's not the same thing."

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does. It's literally the distinction between flirting and harrassment. You should know that." 

"Hey now," Pairo says and raises his hands in defense. "I didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't ever suggest that you should get all fuckboy on her, but I really think you have a shot with this girl. You just need to take your chances."

"Yeah, well too bad she's not gonna come back. Not after what just happened."

"I mean, she laughed it off, right?" Pairo reasons and musses through his hair. "And she still has to pick up her book next week, so she  _will_  be back at least once. Which means if you wanna make a move on her, you have to do it as soon as she comes back. But, uh, no pressure, I guess." Pairo shrugs and offers a lopsided  _what can you do about_  it kind of grin. It does not falter, even under the blistering glower that Kurapika offers in response.

Sure, it's not Pairo's fault that she acted like a weirdo in front of Leo. But to put her on the spot like that... and despite Pairo's assurances, Kurapika is still not convinced that Leorio is anything but straight. No matter how she turned and twisted it, the situation sucked.

"I guess I could apologize for being weird." Get back into friendly waters. Re-establish the status quo.

"That's not what I suggested at all!"

"No, but if I come on to her and she's not interested, she's definitely going to stay away. I'd rather save myself the embarrassment." Kurapika is too aware of how much of a coward she acts, but she cannot do this. And she knows, too, that she ought to get over her crush, if she's not going to act on it. Head out to the nearest gay bar where she will be less in danger of falling for a straight girl, where all she has to do is to be present and relish the attention she is given.

But the sad truth is that Kurapika doesn't want another girl. She want this one, with her posh business outfits and her cute little nicknames. She wants those confiding touches and the twinkle in Leo's dark eyes, her untamed, unrestrained laughter. There is something about this woman that keeps drawing Kurapika in. 

If she could, she would like to remain in the microcosmos of her book store and freeze the relationship she has with Leorio now. Something beyond strangers, but not intimate or friendly enough to progress to her heart being broken. They would be reliable constants in each others lives.

_You know what this is, right?_ , a voice inside her head pipes up.  _That's literally the plot of xxxHolic. Do you really want to become like Watanuki?_

It leaves a bitter taste in Kurapika's mouth. And it adds an uncomfortable quality to the look in Pairo's eyes, too, for he grants Kurapika his undivided attention. His detective glare, that seems to cut right through people. They know each other so well, Kurapika is sometimes concerned he can read her every foolish thought.

 "I'll go clean up the back," she announces then, to escape the searchlight of her best friend's attention. "Call me when you need me."

She doesn't wait for his answer before ducking away into the crammed storage room behind the register. Dust tickles her nose and the entropy of the place makes her fingers itch to get to work. Kurapika rolls up her sleeves and gets to it.


End file.
